Willard Foxton is an investigative journalist & television producer. He writes on skulduggery wherever he finds it, especially in the world of technology.

Tube strikes? Replace them all with robots, I say

Today a trade union has attempted to shut down London to pick a fight with a Tory mayor instead of sticking with arbitration or mediation. Led by an incredibly militant union leader who is widely loathed, they've picked an issue almost designed to garner almost zero public support to strike on.

The RMT may tell you it's about public safety, but really this strike is about one thing – robots taking jobs.

This strike isn't even to protect real jobs – it's to protect hypothetical future jobs, as literally no one is being fired against their will. These future jobs – staff in ticket offices, the ones whose jobs are done better and more efficiently by machines – will by definition be overpaid and useless.

No doubt Bob Crow is digging his heels in because he sees this as the thin end of the wedge: if he lets the ticket staff be replaced, the rest of his members will be swept away inside a decade. He knows we already have driverless trains on that most Thatcherite of tube lines, the DLR out to Canary Wharf.

Of course, it's not just train drivers who are at risk of this sort of thing. As soon as Google gets those driverless cars to work, cabbies, truckers and bus drivers are on the way out. Already,cabbies are being put under massive pressure by the advent of satnavs and smartphone maps. The whole of the transport industry could be mechanised away within 20 years. In effect, Bob Crow is the figurehead for all these workers, a chubby cockney Canute.

The appeal of robot employees for business leaders, policy makers and taxpayers is obvious – not only do you get a high minimum standard of service, you also cut costs, and don't have to deal with the disruption from intractable unions.

This is the cold, hard robotic world we live in now – and everyone, not just Bob Crow, needs to adjust to that reality.